Tutor Feedback: Assignment 1

  My responses to the feedback are in blue italics inserted in the document

Tutor report

Student name	Aylish Giamei	Student number	511033
Course/Module	Painting 1: Practice of Painting.	Assignment number	1

Overall Comments

This is a very exciting submission, which shows a grasp of understanding the fundamentals. It is obvious from this first part of painting 1 that you have understood the rules and now you are ready to push them to create innovative, energetic work that depicts your personal style and concepts. You clearly enjoying playing and investigating paint media and it’s very positive that you go beyond the instructions and delve into what you want to do as well as following the exercises several times. There is potential in the physical approach to your work so be careful not to be too representation all the time.

This is great feedback. It gives me encouragement that I have made a positive step in part one and can build on my approach from here.

Feedback on assignment

Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity

Handling your brushes: you are very right in saying that this exercise is “a first unsteady step in the right direction”. You have delved into these exercises and played with your tools it seems. Even at this early stage that you are quite expressive with layering and being abstract rather than the more formal works of still-life.

Applying paint without brushes: this series of works seems to give your work energy and a vibrancy so don’t forget this. It’s exciting that you have let yourself go almost immediately. You have clearly enjoyed it, both the process of looking for alternative tools and also the outcomes. There is a sense of balanced colour and movement coming through.

I must continue to keep this exercise in mind when working on other exercises.

Painting with pastels: I can see from your drawing course that you are quite competent in using pastels. However when you have combined them with paint and mix media the energy increases as does the vibrancy. A subject matter of using fruit can be quite mundane and overused but you have used the beauty of the pomegranates colour as a feature in your work. Thus what you are doing is communicating your personal interpretation through the way you use colour and textures. Just be careful to refine the work e.g. if you are going to layer up, layer up the surfaces well (cut fruit on left hand side).

The point about the layering is fair. This was a very rapidly executed sketch and I didn't spend time refining it.

Transparent and opaque: the smaller more illustrative studies are your strongest as they hold more character of a winter tree. When they are enlarged they become quite solid objects and lose that fluidity. However, as you say your energetic style comes through when you are filling in the negative shapes. Overall, this exercise has allowed you to focus on adding detailed rather than working only working expressively.

Yes I did feel that the trees became more solid and 'clunky' when I moved into the painting from the sketching. This might have something to so with my inexperience in handling the materials. I'm hoping that my work will become more fluent, fluid and therefore appear more natural as I continue to wrk and therefore gain confidence.

Working on different coloured grounds: there is an array of studies for this exercises and well done to you for investigating the requirements of this exercise in many different ways and going beyond the instructions. The smaller thumbnails are a great collection of how to work out composition and get your tonal qualities right. It is good practice to do preliminary sketches so you are confident in what you are observing and also working with your media.

The study on a white ground is the strongest as there are raw brush marks, which add an uneasy atmosphere to the cold colours you have used, almost like broken glass so there is more of a narrative. The shadows are a little unbalanced and mismatched to the objects compared to the ones on the medium ground. The comparison of all three is an interesting approach and this shows that you have confident skills in creating tone and understanding the blending of colours.

The study on the white ground was the first one I did. I often find that my first attempt at something is more interesting that subsequent iterations. There was more nervous energy in that study so what it lacks in accuracy (unbalanced shadows) it may have made up for in interest and narrative.

Assignment: you have realised your time management skills and although you were disappointed with the end result, it is start of a personal style. I agree with you, although the first exercises were very exciting and even if you spent too much time on them, you can realise that an expressive, experimental and gestural style is more your approach to painting. The assignment piece is technically good with the viewer following the perspective into the trees but yes the colour scheme is quite garish and overloaded. However, the concept behind the work is very interesting and at this level to focus on a narrative and bring this into our work is a very exciting place to be as oppose to only painting what you observe, so all is not lost.

Yes I suppose I lost sight of these positive aspects of what I did in the build up to this piece because the end result fell short of what I had envisaged - but that I guess there will always be something of a gap between imagination and reality in the production of art. I am happy as this feedback is more positive than I had expected. However I have also learned a lot from the disappointment - especially regarding time management.

Sketchbooks

Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Demonstration of Creativity

Your sketchbook is exciting and full of visual information. Not only have you tried the exercises several times but also you have helped yourself move on by looking at artists in-between. There are explorations of colour, textures, mix media and small studies that lead onto more exciting pieces. A very good way of working by delving into it. Keep this up!

Thank you! 

Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays

Context

You commentary is in-depth with a focus on the processes, your personal critical review of the work and links to artist research. You have not only descried the success of your work but the failures too so you can push yourself next time. The stories behind your works are interesting so continue to do this. Your artist research is also relevant but try and go to more exhibitions to see the work in the flesh as I think once you see how paint can be applied, it’ll inspire you even more.

I did go to several exhibitions during part 1 of the course. I had written up my notes in my sketchbook but had not put them in my blog (again time management problems). I must not have made clear enough that these were exhibition write-ups so as soon as my sketchbook arrives back I will put them in a better format and put them in my blog.

Suggested reading/viewing

Context

Anselm Kiefer- large textural pieces combining natural materials and paint. His concepts behind the work are very interesting. He has an exhibition on in London at the Royal academy, London.

This was one of the exhibitions that I visited and I found it truly inspirational and very moving. I will write my responses more clearly in my blog.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner- german Expressist style with holds a raness and a play on colour and brush strokes.

Peter Doig- relating to your assignment piece, atmospheric and gnarly.

Leon Kossoff- thck layering of paint to create a sense of chaos and energy.

I am aware of all of the artists you have mentioned and will enjoy taking a more in-depth look at their work. 

Pointers for the next assignment (Action points)

More exciting compositions- although your work is exciting in application of paint, some of your compositions are bland for what you are capable of. Instead of a bowl of fruit why not have decaying fruit. Be alternative and unusual in your subject choices.

Yes - composition is a definite weak point for me which is whey I end up making so many small sketches - I have to work it out with a drawing implement because I can't see it in my mind's eye. I like the encouragement to look for the unusual - I will do that.

Work larger to compliment your expressive gestural style so you can really push yourself and bring the physicality of you approaches into the work. Have a look at Jackson Pollock’s ‘Action Paintings.’

I like to work large - I think I started small because I wasn't very confident with the media. I will get bigger! I saw some of Jackson Pollock's work on a trip to Venice last year at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum. I loved it - I really like work in which you can see the physical involvement of the painter and the exploitation of the characteristics of the medium.

Audience and narrative- you have started to do this already in your assignment piece but think about adding a narrative to your work. What are you trying to communicate to an audience, what do you want people to see in your work?

 I'll try to strike a balance here between thought out narrative and spontaneity - to communicate ideas and narrative without over-thinking and losing the energy of painting.

 Assessment potential

You may want to get credit for your hard work and achievements with the OCA by formally submitting your work for assessment at the end of the module. More and more people are taking the idea of lifelong learning seriously by submitting their work for assessment but it is entirely up to you. We are just as keen to support you whether you study for pleasure or to gain qualifications. Please consider whether you want to put your work forward for assessment and let me know your decision when you submit Assignment 2. I can then give you feedback on how well your work meets the assessment requirements."

Tutor name:	Diana Ali
Date	07/01/2015
Next assignment due	16/03/15

The main points I need to work on:

(1) Time management

(2) Maintaining the fluidity of initial sketches when moving into paint

(3) Colour mixing

(4) Writing up gallery visits on my blog

(5) Look at Kirchner, Doig and Kossoff

(6)Exciting compositions and subject matter

(7)Work bigger

(8) Narrative and communication

Assignment One

For assignment one there was pretty much a free choice of subject matter- the only specification was that the painting should be at least A3 in size and should be representational rather than abstract. 

I decided that as this painting does not count towards the assessment result I would give myself permission to play about a bit with the 'stuff' of the paint. I particularly wanted to apply paint in a variety of ways. I also decided to do a landscape painting as this was the section of the drawing 1 course that I was weakest and least confident with. It might seem an odd choice to go with my least-favourite type of subject matter but there were two reasons for this. The first was that I had been inspired by the changes happening in the landscape in the local area in this season. The second was that it afforded an opportunity for me to practice an area of weakness without it adversely affecting my final marks for the course.

I started with a few sketchbook pages. First some rapid sketches of the plane trees with autumn foliage still attached which I see when I drop my son at the station every morning for school. I was also attracted by the uniform planting of a group of birch (I think - or maybe poplar) trees on the road to my Son's school. They are very regimented in tight rows like rows of soldiers - planted with military precision. This gives rise to a repeating pattern. 

In one of these plantations there is a small bent gnarly tree at the very edge of the rows. This made me think about the contrast of 'one among many' - an individual amongst all this uniformity or the triumph of nature over man's intervention.

At this time of year, the vines are also without leaves. I love their gnarly, twisting - almost black shapes. Because of the lack of foliage you can easily see the posts and wires that support them and they again create a regular repeating pattern on the landscape. Many of the vineyards around here use light coloured concrete posts and en masse these started to remind me of military cemeteries. I wondered why these military analogies kept coming to mind. I realised that I had been exposed to lots of media interest in WWI recently because of its centenary. I had also visited the installation of poppies in the moat of the Tower of London. An art installation which had thoroughly captured the public's imagination with its symbolism of one poppy for every British soldier killed in the war. 
I had also visited Exhibitions of the work of Anselm Keifer and Sigmar Polke. Both German artists made work commenting on WW2. In particular the vines reminded me of Anselm Keifer's 'Black Flakes' - a desolate and snowy landscape which has symbolism representing the landscape of the holocaust.

Because of the way my mind was working, I decided to visit the military cemeteries at Cassino which is only about 1 hour's drive away from where we live. This served two purposes. A well as allowing me to sketch the uniformity of the gravestones it also acted as an eye opener for my son who is 14 years old and desperately wants to become a pilot - so he is considering entering the air force when he is old enough. We first went to the commonwealth graveyard. It is well kept with manicured grass and pruned trees. The stones are all uniform but large numbers of them have pictures of the soldiers attached or floral tributes and many are engraved with individual messages from their family. my son got quite emotional reading one of the messages which read "Sleep well daddy - from George" and he also went quite pale when he saw that some of the dead were only 17 years old. The rows upon rows upon down of the stones really brought home to him the implications of war.

We also visited the Polish cemetery which is up near the monastery of Montecassino. This is a much starker memorial. there is very little green here. Most of the cemetery is clad with a light coloured stone and the grave-stones are cross-shaped. I only identified one grave which had a photograph here. An there was only one grave which had any flowers. I found the image of this single decorated grave among all this uniformity quite poignant. There were also occasional stones on which were draped cheap plastic rosaries or crucifixes in lurid colours. I made several thumbnail drawings in my sketchbook. 

At a certain point - I realised that I had come a long way away from what had been my original intention for this assignment. I think this was when I started to draw triangles and measure where I thought the flowers for the focal point should be placed on the page. I realised I'd got too caught up in the symbolism of it all and in the process of 'making a picture'. It was perhaps getting all a bit too contrived. I remembered that often during the drawing 1 course pieces where I had been over thinking had been less successful than those that were more instinctive. I went round in a complete circle and decided to go back to whet had interested me in the first place - the uniformity of the planting of the trees. When in doubt "keep it simple stupid"

I was seriously running out of time to complete this assignment so I made a very rapid colour study in acrylics before proceeding with the final painting which is approximately A2 in size.

I started on a ground of a pale wash of yellow ochre. I then applied a graded wash of cerulean over the sky and I under painted the darker areas of the grass and forest with alizarin crimson (mainly because I'd seen one of my fellow students do this in a landscape via our Facebook group and I thought it had worked well with hints of the crimson showing through the green).  I used a lot of titanium white for the trees but overlaid washes to dull down the trunks as they receded into the background. I used a palette knife and sharp contact of light and dark to paint the tree which is the furthest forward to try to make it the focal point. In order to represent the fine branches of the trees further back I applied scrapings of alizarin crimson and burnt umber using an almost dry bottle brush. For the undergrowth in the foreground I created some texture by applying paint quite thickly and then working back into it using colour shapers.

Overall, I'm quite disappointed with the end result of this painting and think that if I had the time to rework it I would probably go in a different direction. I think my main problem with it is my handling of the colour. The greens in the foreground are too lurid and this combined with the cerulean of the sky combine to put me in mind of a technicolour film or a kitsch and overly coloured landscape photograph such as you might find on a box of chocolates from the 1970s. 

However, on the plus side I did do what I set out to do in playing with palette knives and colour shapers and I do think I've communicated something about the repetition and uniformity of the tree planting. 

The good news is that the next section of the course is all about the handling of colour so I'm sure my skills in this area will improve.

From this section of the course I have learnt that I still need to work on my time management. I spent quite a lot of time on individual exercises and was left with very little time in which to complete the assignment. I must address this in part two because it is imperative that I stick to schedule with this course in order to be able to complete a degree within the time limit because I really spent far too much time on drawing 1.

References:

(1) http://www.apollo-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/kiefer-76.jpg